Rise to the maximum

Carlos Carvalhal has seen signs on the training ground this past week that indicate his players are reaching the high levels expected of them.

While the head coach has been pleased on the whole with the team work and the collective, there is the firm belief that individuals are still to reach their maximum.

“This will happen. We know this will happen,” Carlos said confidently during his pre-match press conference on Thursday at Middlewood Road.

At this same point last season – after 16 games – the Owls had amassed an identical point tally of 24.

In order to push on in similar fashion to that of the previous campaign, Carlos has urged his players to upgrade to their maximum and says, when that happens, we will see the collective increase in tandem.

He said: “We know the team can improve a little more when all the players individually go to the best of them.

“There are some players we are expecting to go to the best of them because we know them very, very well.

“When these players find the best of them, the performance of the team can increase.

“If the individual can increase, the performance will increase and the collective will increase.

“We are doing very good team work but we need a little upgrade in some players to go to the maximum.

“The signals from them this week have been very, very positive.

“These kind of things you can’t control as a coach. You can’t go inside a player and check if he is 100% or not.

“But the external signals in the training, the attitude and what they are doing are at the maximum. This is important to grow up in our position.”